Jacksonville is #1 City for Pet Lovers

[wsansewjs]

Oh my! Well, well, what we have here?! Finally Jacksonville is #1 for something... the best place to live for your pets!

Recently, some of the Movoto Real Estate bloggers have been considering purchasing a pet. Specifically, some of us are interested in buying a cat or dog. Our problem is that we live in the San Francisco area, and our apartments are tiny–think Hobbit-sized. And while we are pretty sure we could house a pet, we aren’t sure about having to give up our scant living space.

Nonetheless, our to-get-or-not-to-get debate started us thinking about what a city needs to be a “pet city.” In fact, we got so caught up with the idea that we decided to build a set of criteria and rank 30 of the country’s most populous cities.

What did we find? If you want to live in a pet-friendly environment, you should skip New York City, and all the other major metros.

Without further ado, here are the top 10 cities to own a pet:

Dallas, TX
Charlotte, NC
Milwaukee, WI
Louisville, KY
Phoenix, AZ
Austin, TX
San Diego, CA
Oklahoma City, OK
El Paso, TX
1. Jacksonville, FL

If you want to know how we created our analysis, continue on. Or, if you want to see our full list by rank, you can go here. Either way, your pets will thank you.


Population and Household

Figuring out the number of pets in a city isn’t easy. It’s like walking your dog and forgetting plastic bags for your furry friend’s business. We’re exaggerating, of course, but it wasn’t easy. To even start our project, we needed to know the population of pets in each city.

We started by finding the estimated population of each city and then divided that by 2.59–the average number of people in a household. This gave us an idea for the number of households in each cosmo.

Why did we do that? The helpful people at the American Pet Products Association states that 62 percent of households have pets. Knowing the number of households in a city let us make an educated guess at the number of pets in each city.

Just to be clear, here’s an example:

There are an estimated 3,819,702 people living in Los Angeles, or with our analysis, 1,474,788 households. Using APPA’s 62 percent figure, we were able to estimate that there are 914,369 pets in the City of Angels—nearly all of which are probably little yappy dogs in purses. (C’mon, you know it’s true!)

With an idea of the number of pets in each city, we were able to create a metric that told us where your pets want to be.


Parks, Stores, Vets

We measured three criteria to learn which city is best for Fido. They were:

Park Space
Pet Services
Number of Veterinarians
Once we had these numbers, we calculated the percentage of each criteria per pet and then created an average score.


Parks and Bark Space

Parks matter. If you live in a large city, having open space to let your pet play is important. This is why we included each city’s park acreage as one of our criteria.

Where did we find each city’s park acreage? We used ParkScore, a tool the Movoto bloggers highly recommend for those home buyers who make public space a priority. ParkScore offers a comprehensive rating system of the country’s 40 largest parks (San Francisco is #1). Along with the ranking, the not-for-profit provides details about each of the cities’ parks such as their number of acreage.


Places to Pamper Your Pets

Whether you need a hamster wheel or an interior designer for cats (they do too exist!), a good pet city needs lots of places that cater to your furry balls needs.

Our original thought was to use the 2007 U.S. Economic Census. However, not only is that data five years old, it didn’t adequately show the number of pet services in a city. We worked around this by using everyone’s favorite reviewing source—Yelp.

For each of our 30 cities, we counted the number of pet services, which included multiple businesses such as pet grooming and dog walkers. In addition, we excluded veterinarians because we calculated that data separately.

Obviously there are some problems with using Yelp. Not all pet services are on the website, but it does give a strong idea for the number of pet businesses in each city.


Call a Veterinarian

You want your pets to be healthy. So do we. This is why we included the number of vets in an area.

Unfortunately, the information on veterinarians we found was somewhat troublesome. The Census Bureau tracks various employment statistics for metropolitan areas–not just cities. We went ahead and used this data anyway.


Where’s Your Pet Sanctuary?

So what’s the takeaway? If you treat your pets like your children (we all have friends who do), moving to New York City or Los Angeles might not be in their best interest. For a perky pet, head over to Jacksonville, where your little guy will be even more pampered than he or she is now.


The Top 30 Cities for Pets

Jacksonville, FL
El Paso, TX
Oklahoma City, OK
San Diego, CA
Austin, TX
Phoenix, AZ
Louisville, KY
Milwaukee, WI
Charlotte, NC
Dallas, TX
Portland, OR
Houston, TX
Nashville, TN
San Antonio, TX
San Jose, CA
Fort Worth, TX
Columbus, OH
Memphis, TN
Indianapolis, IN
Washington, DC
Denver, CO
Seattle, WA
Boston, MA
Detroit, MI
Baltimore, MD
San Francisco, CA
Philadelphia, PA
Los Angeles, CA
Chicago, IL
New York City, NY

Original Source: http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/pet-lovers/

-Josh

[fsujax]

me and my dog love it here! haha

[duvaldude08]

Yeah we love pets, but discrminate against each other. What a city ! 

[If_I_Loved_you]

Yeah we love pets, but discrminate against each other. What a city ! 

^ +1

[Cheshire Cat]

Let's back up just a minute please.  There are people in this city who discriminate but it is not everyone, not by a long shot.  Let's not paint ourselves with such a broad brush of intolerance.

About loving our pets, I believe it was Gandhi who said " The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated"  the same holds true for communities I believe.  Being a pet loving city speaks well to the underlying morality of the people in Jacksonville.

[KenFSU]

I believe it was Gandhi who said " The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated"  the same holds true for communities I believe.  Being a pet loving city speaks well to the underlying morality of the people in Jacksonville.

I promise I won't derail the topic with a wild rant about the sheer horror and brutality of factory farming in America, but even if Jacksonville is a great place for pet lovers, the ratio of fast food restaurants and WalMarts to places where you can actually obtain humanely raised and slaughtered meat would hardly qualify Jacksonville as a city concerned with animal treatment and welfare. Everyone has to choose their own battles, I understand that, but I just wanted to point out that there's a big difference between scruffing the family dog behind the ear when he gives you the puppy dog eyes and actually caring enough about animal welfare to alter your lifestyle choices to avoid financially supporting the heartbreakingly cruel practices used so widely in the production of cheap meat. If people really educated themselves as to where their food came from, they'd realize that Gandhi would most likely give Jacksonville (and most of America) an F.

End rant, I promise

Oh, and as a dog owner, I whole heartedly agree that Jacksonville is tops in this category!

[Cheshire Cat]

Believe me I know that KenFSU and you are very correct.  I am speaking totally with regard to our pets.  You point is well taken and valid.

[KenFSU]

Believe me I know that KenFSU and you are very correct.  I am speaking totally with regard to our pets.  You point is well taken and valid.

Sorry, it's a kneejerk reaction I'm good for once every six months or so

Glad you realize it wasn't pointed toward you Diane!

[Cheshire Cat]

 I get those jerky knees every now and again myself Ken.   

[duvaldude08]

Let's back up just a minute please.  There are people in this city who discriminate but it is not everyone, not by a long shot.  Let's not paint ourselves with such a broad brush of intolerance.

About loving our pets, I believe it was Gandhi who said " The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated"  the same holds true for communities I believe.  Being a pet loving city speaks well to the underlying morality of the people in Jacksonville.

It was a joke? 

[Cheshire Cat]

Ah, a joke.  There in lies the problems of conversing online. You need to add a "snark" disclaimer for folks.  I will be the first to admit that I have yet to figure out the rhythm and personalities of all who post here.     I am beginning to figure it out, I think.  lol

[KenFSU]

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/401979/beth-cravey/2013-02-27/city-animal-shelter-named-inspiration-most-outstanding

Our animal shelter is truly something to be proud of.

A massive, well deserved congratulations to all those involved.

[I-10east]

^^^I just wanted to your comment earlier; To me caring for domesticated pets, and agricultural farming for meat are two totally different issues, as farm/game animals aren't pets. I can see if Jax was #1 for the humane care of farm animals, then that might raise some eyebrows. Far as what you eat, as long as it isn't your actual pet (organic, farm raised, cheap meat, only veggies or whatever) I don't see any correlation with that and being a pet owner.

[Ocklawaha]

I love dogs... second only to cats...

Fried or broiled! 

[If_I_Loved_you]

I love dogs... second only to cats...
Fried or broiled!

Sick and Stupid!